Glimpses of Paradise
by Fair-Ithil
Summary: A collection of drabble-like things centered around the men of Lost. Companion piece to Series of Definitions. COMPLETE.


**Disclaimer:** Don't own Lost.

**Spoilers:** up til Do No Harm

**A/N:** Companion piece to _Series of D__efinitions_. Enjoy and leave a review. Thank you.

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**Chance**

The others don't understand the Island.

They don't understand that's it an entity all its own. They scurry around afraid and ignorant to the power around them. They don't understand the blessing the Island has given them too caught up in their own dilemmas.

He's different however, open and willing to learn from their new environment.

All he needs to do is look at the now abandoned wheelchair in the corner of the caves to remind himself of the gift he's been given.

They Island has given them all a second chance, it's his job to ensure the others don't waste them.

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**Foreshadowing**

The numbers play on a loop in his head, like a bad song that makes no sense but won't be tuned out.

_4 8 15 16 23 42 _

Looking back, he should have known they were all bad numbers.

At the age of _four_ his dad left, at _eight_ his grandma had died giving way to his grandpa's heart condition, at _fifteen _he'd mentally collapsed, at _sixteen_ he met Lenny and the numbers, and at _twenty-three_ he'd managed to curse all his loved ones and not so loved ones and get stranded in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of strangers on, as Shannon so honestly referred to it, Craphole Island.

4… 8… 15… 16… 23…_42_

He rather not think about what the last number will bring.

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**Progress**

When he's not working on the raft he's drawing.

Nothing particularly special, though he wants it to be, but then he wants to be a lot of things.

He wants it to be something that will erase nine missing years, and what ever resentment his boy holds against him, and more realistically, he wants to smooth out the terrain of their still fragile relationship. A second start.

He takes the scraps of paper, some more damaged than others, and draws neat little boxes and word bubbles, makes up characters and dialogue, creates his own tattered comic book to make up for the one he rashly destroyed.

The story takes shape slowly, roughly, barely disguised, easily place, location, characters, all a dead give away.

But he's an artist and a builder, not a writer, he hopes it enough.

He gives the shabby booklet to Walt by the fire and watches he's son carefully leaf through it.

"I like the pictures."

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**Lies**

He does not like to lie, though he did it often.

He lied about his father in fear that she would be ashamed to call a fisherman's son husband.

He lied about what he did for her father so that she would not fear him.

He lied to her father about the business trip in order to save their marriage.

Each lie was another knot to the simple thread life is meant to be. Each lie another complication that could have been avoided. Each lie another weight, another burden, another fatal sentence to their marriage. If he could he would take back every lie he ever uttered in the hopes that it would mend the rift between them. There was joy between them once, it was still there, dormant but willing to appear, all it needed was coaxing.

He thinks about the life that could have been in L.A. after all the lies has been banished and their marriage reborn. They would have been better, like they had always wanted them to be and the silence would at last disappear. Instead he labors away on a raft on an island with strangers he does not understand, everything fallen apart.

He had tired, though she could not see, too caught up in learning how to weave convincing lies of her own.

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**Sides**

For the most part he wishes his dad would treat him more like Mr. Locke does: like an adult.

Mr. Locke trusts him, with a knife, with a secret, with himself.

His dad would much rather have him sit tight, watch while he builds a raft that doesn't inspire much confidence, listening to him go on about old buildings in New York.

It's boring, the sun, the beach; even Vincent gets a little depressed whenever he calls on him to play.

But it's not bad all the time, like at night, when his dad pulls out the box of letters (and now a new comic book too) and tells him now he shaded this and stories that are too insane to be true about him as a baby.

Sometimes the island isn't too bad, there's food and water and he's gotten use to the smoke the fire constantly gives off. It's nice even, falling asleep while his dad talks about things he doesn't remotely remember, almost makes him wish they'd never leave.

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**Walls**

It is odd, the comfort she provides.

Loud, arrogant and slight vain, every bit the sort of woman he never thought he'd be attracted to, she surprised him.

She was strong and ready and able, she reminded him in the smallest ways to a woman he once knew.

But she was different, she lacked confidence, behind the mask of the spoiled little girl there was something _broken_, something he wanted to fix. He was good at fixing things.

It became a mission of sorts, helping her, removing walls and building something stronger, a belief in herself that would not be torn apart by her brother's sharp words. Maps, French words, shoes, a song about a fish, all coming together, she was new then, willing to shed her past, willing to move on. With him.

It all comes back to him the day she finds the picture under his bedding and asks in a small voice after the woman who looks back at her.

"_Nadia…"_ he says, something constricting in his chest. She says the name herself and looks up, one hand holding out the picture, the other holding on to him. He tells the story again and feels different…

With Rousseau it had been a reminder of his failing, with Shannon it is relief.

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**Mother**

The night Claire gives birth he prays two rosaries: one for the baby in her arms, one for the man suffering in the caves.

He finds the words slide off his tongue easily, as easily as they did when he was a school boy at Sunday mass.

_Hail Mary, full of grace the Lord be with you…_

The night closes in around them, the fire flickering, casting a protective circle of light around them. Claire seems to glow from where she sleeps, little baby boy tucked tightly in her arms. Kate eyes the sleeping child, a look on her face that hurts him as much as the sight of Claire crying on the floor. Jin sits a bit further from them, still inside the circle. He wonders briefly if he's been though this before, entirely too calm throughout the entire event. Maybe there are children back home that stay awake each night praying so that their own mum and dad will return. He thinks of his own mother and wonders if she goes to mass every Sunday, lighting candles, praying for his soul. He hopes God hasn't tired of him.

…_blessed are you among women and blessed the fruit of you womb… _

He looks at the baby, little lip stuck out in a sleeping pout, and he thinks it was worth it. Protecting this fragile life from what ever he has to, the ringing of gunshots still clear in his ears. He's died for her, he thinks, and now he'll die for him too.

…_pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen _

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**Traits**

The fact that she's using him isn't lost on him. He may be idealistic but he's not stupid.

He sees the way she softens just a little bit too much when she's around him, sees the daggers she shoots at Sawyer for all his little smartass comments, sees that look in her eyes whenever she's trying to convince him to do something that reminds him a little too much of his father when he was trying to talk him around to doing something.

That frightens him, the connections he makes to his father with just about everyone he meets, connections that are never positive. With Charlie it was addiction, with Jin it was control, with her its manipulation (he ignores his own connections).

What frightens him even more is the fact that he so clearly sees it and does so little against it. With his father there was at the very least the rebellious son act to fulfill, with her; he's just a lovesick idiot. That's what it comes down to sometimes, the fact that he's _attached_ to her, the fact that he wants to save her, from her past, from the island, from herself.

Sawyer has the terrible habit of calling things out…his dad use to do that. "I know what you're tryin' doc, and I've got to call you a fool and a few other things."

Jack knows, he's hopeful, but he's not stupid.

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**Descend**

Before Sawyer, when he was still James, he liked to read, would read anything that came his way.

Once Sawyer came along he stopped reading, taking up a seat in a bar with a pretty woman at his side instead. It had been a good life then, provided he could keep his guilt in cheek. There was always something that bothered him about the fact that in wanting to destroy the man who'd destroyed his family he'd become that man, he'd become Sawyer.

As a kid it had seemed like a noble thing, avenging his family, in the end it had become the sort of thing that made his head hurt, evolving like a villains rise to power in any book.

On the island he starts reading again, anything he can find: _Watership Down_, _A Wrinkle In Time_, _Macbeth_,_ Black Beauty_,_ Emma_,_ A Collection of Poems by Edgar Allan Poe_. He keeps reading even after his head starts to hurt and he's made to wear stream-rolled Harry Potter glasses (he's read one of those in his time on the island; boy seems like something of a dumb ass, always poking around, like Nancy Drew and that damn dog with the stoner friend put together).

He reads every book he can find, enjoying them almost as much as he enjoys the cigarettes and the liquor he lifted off the plane. But once the booze and smokes are gone, all he'll have left are the books.

It's the closest to James he'll have been in a long time.

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**Escape**

Dying doesn't scare him so much anymore. Not when he really considers what he's leaving.

A speck of land filled with more mysteries than he really cares for, a group of strangers he can't fit into, a sister who doesn't need him anymore.

It'll be alright, he tells himself as the pain shoots through his entire body and Jack and Michael (at least he thinks it's Michael) move him. It'll be alright. It's not exactly the thought of the after life that comforts him, but the thought of simply not being _there_. He thinks of how clichéd it is to be considering his faith (or lack of) now, in the moments before he dies (there's no point denying it) but he can't help it. It's too late to suddenly plead to some divine power, or to pray, instead he simply says sorry and asks Jack to let him go.

And when he's sure that the end's come, he tries to say sorry again, to his sister this time, apologize for loving her, then shutting her out, for treating her badly. He was suppose to protect her, instead all he did was take her down with him.

He tries but the words die along with him. The pain stops and all that's left behind is an empty shell.

He's the third to escape the island after the crash of flight 815.

**Fin**


End file.
